One-nation conservatism
One-nation conservatism is a form of British conservatism that advocates the preservation of established institutions and traditional principles combined with political democracy. It views society as organic and values paternalism and pragmatism. The ideology originated with Benjamin Disraeli, who appealed to working-class men to solve worsening divisions in society through introducing factory and health acts, as well as greater protection for workers. The elite's purpose is to reconcile the interests of all classes, labor as well as management, and to promote the paternalistic obligation of the privileged and wealthy to the poorer parts of society. History Disraeli's reforms Tory democracy triumphed with the passage of the Reform Act 1867. Disraeli, who had insisted since the 1830s that the Conservatives were truly the democratic party (and who had supported an alliance between the aristocracy and the urban working class against the middle-class and the Industrial Revolution), achieved his goals with the Reform Act. While the new franchise did not lead to a Conservative breakthrough in 1868, it was successful in 1874, with the urban householder seeing the Conservative Party as his true friend. The social reforms of 1875 and 1876 showed that the Conservative Party appealed to "the Conservative working man" instead of the liberal middle classes, thus preparing the Conservative Party for the inevitable democratic future. Disraeli also sought to establish the Conservative Party as one with a reputation of being a "party of government"; the Liberal Party had beaten the Conservatives to it in 1868 by advocating the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland and jeering at the Conservatives as the party of "Protestantism and protection". While the Tories had dropped protectionism, they never dropped their defense of the Anglican establishment, rendering a Conservative alliance with the Irish impossible and dividing the Tories. While the Liberals made gains in the "Celtic fringe" (Ireland, Scotland, and Wales), the Conservatives made major gains in Lancashire and Cheshire, where the existence of a large Irish immigrant population caused a Protestant anti-Irish reaction in 1865 and 1868, turning the locals against hte party which seemed more closely identified with the Irish (the Liberals). The extension of the franchise to working-class householders and Gladstone's policy of disestablishment greatly strengthened the pro-Liberal trend among Irish voters. Also in the 1860s, middle-class opinion in the south had shifted. Both the world of business and suburban villadom had begun a slow move away from the Liberal Party, contributing to the Conservative ascendancy at the end of the 19th century. Peak of Disraelian conservatism During the Conservatives' time in opposition from 1868 to 1874, they gradually built up their working-class appeal. William Ewart Gladstone's payment of damages to the United States for Britain's construction of the Confederate ship [[CSS Alabama|CSS Alabama]] during the American Civil War, discontent with the liberal reforming zeal and the republicanism of some Radicals, Gladstone's poor handling of Russia's 1870 abrogation of the clauses of the 1856 Treaty of Paris (which banned Russia from having a navy in the Black Sea), and Britain's impotence during the Franco-Prussian War harmed Gladstone's reputation. Many Liberals showed positive guilt towards the British Empire, while Disraeli supported patriotism, the British Empire, and a more imperialistic foreign policy. He declared that the English people would be idiots if they had not "long perceived that the time had arrived when social and not political improvement is the object which they ought to pursue," making a bid for working-class support. In 1872 and 1873, Peel was able to create a broad-based appeal to both the working-class and the forces of property everywhere, an feat not achieved since Robert Peel's leadership. In 1874, improved Conservative organization and poor Liberal organization, together with Gladstone's inept timing of the dissolution and the creation of divisions within the Liberal fold, led to a major Conservative electoral victory, making striking gains in the bigger boroughs of the United Kingdom. Decline In 1880, however, industrial and agricultural depression, working-class opposition to the rise in food prices, defeats in Afghanistan and South Africa in 1879, and Disraeli's failure to prioritize social reform lost him the election. Even Lancashire deserted the Tories, and the Conservatives only did well in South East England. By this point, the Conservative programme had little connection with Disraeli's early Tory philosophy and neither revived Tory paternalism nor supported redistributive state intervention in the interest of the have-nots. The middle classes (frightened by Gladstonian liberalism) began to migrate into the Conservative Party, frightened by working-class militancy in the form of Joseph Chamberlain's radicalism and Sir Charles Dilke's republicanism. "Patriotism" became a valuable weapon in the Conservative armory, as did defense of national and imperial unity, although some Conservative leaders would occasionally adopt an isolationist, "Little-Englander" line. Tory democracy under Salisbury Under Lord Salisbury, the Conservatives easily won three general elections out of the five into which he led the Tories over the course of his 17-year leadership. By the late 19th century, the Conservative Party was still predominantly landed and was financed mostly by the great territorial magnates.The Conservatives exploited the professional and business classes frightened by Gladstonianism, and who had also begun to lose their old dissenting roots and send more of their sons to Anglican public schools in the 1870s and 1880s. The middle classes moved out of the city centers to prosperous suburbia as the commuter era begun, and the Tories' use of the "Old Identity" tactic became more irrelevant as time went by. In 1885, for the first time since 1832, the Conservatives had a majority in the English boroughs and, for the first time ever, a minority in the English counties, although they recovered many of the lost county seats soon enough. In the July 1886 election, the Conservative ascendancy was ushered in by a triumph over the Liberals just six months after the previous election, with the Irish Home Rule movement provoking a Conservative backlash. The Conservatives won the support of middle-class suburbanites as well as working-class Britons concerned by the Irish question (especially in areas with large Irish populations) and by "bread and butter" issues such as welfare and living standards. The Second Boer War initially rallied public opinion in favor of the Conservative government, but the lingering on of the war and the methods used caused disillusionment. The death of Queen Victoria in 1901 emphasized the end of the Victorian era and the beginning of a new century, and Salisbury's retirement in 1902 and his replacement with his nephew Arthur Balfour led to signs that the Conservatives' time in government would be limited. Recent evolution Froms the end of the 19th century, the Conservative Party moved away from paternalism in favor of free market capitalism, but one-nation conservatism was later revived during the Interwar period of 1918-1939 in response to the "Great Slump". The philosophy continued to be held by the Conservatives from the end of World War II in 1945 until the mid-1970s rise of the New Right, which blamed the country's social and economic problems on one-nation conservatism. Under Margaret Thatcher, the Conservatives adopted neoliberal Thatcherist policies, but Prime Minister David Cameron would later adopt one-nation policies during his premiership. Category:Political ideologies Category:Conservatism